6th Wage Boards for journalists, non-journalists constituted

New Delhi, May 29 (UNI) The Government has issued the notifications constituting the Wage Boards for Working Journalists and Non-Journalist employees of newspapers and news agencies with effect from May 24.

Wage boards were ealier set up in 1956, 1963, 1975, 1985, 1994, with the last, headed by Guwahati High Court Chief Justice Rajkumar Manisana Singh, submitting their final recommendations to the govenment on July 25, 2000.

An official release by the Labour and Employment Ministry said these Wage Boards have been constituted for the purpose of fixing or revising rates of wages of working journalists and newspaper employees and non-journalists newspapers employees in accordance with the provisions of the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955.

The Boards, to be headquartered in New Delhi, have been asked to submit their reports within the stipulated period of 3 years.

Both the Boards will have 10 members and be headed by Justice K Narayana Kurup, a former Judge of Kerala High Court who has also served as Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court.

Former Labour and Employment Secretary K M Sahni will be the Member Secretary for both the Boards.

The other independent members common to both the Boards are B P Singh and P N Prasanna Kumar. The employers will be represented by Indian Newspaper Society's Naresh Mohan, Gurinder Singh (All India Small and Medium Newspapers Federation) and Prataprai Tarachand Shah (Indian Language Newspaper Association).

K Vikram Rao (Indian Federation of Working Journalists), Nand Kishore Trikha (National Union of Journalists (India)) and Suresh Akhouri (Indian Journalists Union) will represent the Working Journalists on the Wage Board for Working Journalists while Madan Phadnis (All India Newspaper Employees Federation), Uma Shankar Mishra (National Federation of Newspaper Employees) and M S Yadav (Press Trust of India) will represent non-journalists on the Wage Boards for Non-Working Journalists.

UNI